Dead to the World
by ginnyinvisible
Summary: In a single moment, the world is ripped away from those it belongs to. In the aftereffects of a nuclear war, Edward and Bella find themselves two of the only humans left alive in the ruins of New York City. And in a destroyed world, love is impermissible.
1. Chapter 1

**BELLA**

Isn't it strange how disconnected I feel?

As if I'm not here. As if this is happening to someone else. As if I'm watching another nuclear war video in Mr. Banner's AP physics class. Watching the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings in history class. Not here. Not now.

I've always thought of the end of the world coming at some distant point. Affecting my grandchildren. My grandchildren's grandchildren. Not me.

I wonder, coldly, disconnectedly, where the bomb came from. We knew Iran had been hostile. The media had played up its supposed weapons since 9/11. Yet I had always doubted it. Renee had said haughtily that if they bombed us, they had the right to.

When the nuclear attack warning had been issued after first period, the speculation had immediately exploded into panicked assumptions in locked classrooms. Everyone was shocked. Everyone was horrified.

And now it's happened. We knew it could happened. We knew it was, actually, likely; due to the nuclear weaponry that had infiltrated the black market after the disbanding of the Soviet Union.

We had hoped, though.

When it happened, I saw a flash. A bright, white, flash that sears my eyes with stripes of blazing nothingness. Just half a second. And it's gone. I know what this is. Flash blindness. We all know everything there is about nuclear bombs and the effects. We were prepared.

Except. Not.

I've fallen against the wall. I feel the window of the cafeteria shatter against my weight. The shards of glass pierce into my back. I can't see. All there is is white.

It's over. I'd dead. Right?

I slide farther down the window. I feel a cold wind rush and slap my chilled cheek. A rushing noise fills my ears.

I open my mouth, and let out a slight moan. Slump back farther over the windowsill. All there is is white. White. White that is tightening around me, pressing at my lungs, searing at my eyes.

And all around me, there is silence. None of the chatter of my classmates. No Mr. Banner, walking around, checking if we're okay.

Just a second. That was all it took. Mrs. Cope had been talking on the announcements, my dulled mind remembered. "Please stay in the cafeteria or gym, in the bomb alert position. It may happen any moment now. Stay calm. Stay--"

Then her voice had been cut off by whiteness. By nothing.

And now--in just a second, it's all gone. Everything. Everyone.

I am gone as well.

-

**EDWARD**

My pants are on fire.

I chuckle. How ironically fucked up.

How can I be laughing at a time like this? I'm in a cafeteria that's prickling with electricity from the recent nuclear attack, the ceiling looks like its just about to crash down, everyone around me is dead. Tanya, my girlfriend, had been perching on the side of the cafeteria table, and now she's sprawled over the top of it in her tight cheerleader outfit and short skirt, her eyes wide open and blank. Somehow I can't think of her as my girlfriend, as a slut, who I'd been cheating on with her best friend Irina. Somehow I can't.

My gaze moves on, stunned and disbelieving, at the rest of my friends. Faces frozen forever in laughing gazes. All dead. God. We really fucked this world up, didn't we?

And my pants are on fire. Sometimes, when Tanya and I had broke apart from our make out sessions from the back of the room in Banner's classroom, I'd heard some of his cautionary rants in the event of a nuclear, which had grown more and more often and real this past year. I remember something about fires getting started as an aftereffect from the disturbances caused by the fission or fusion or whichever it was. I glance around. The air is hazy and yellow. I should get out of here.

The flare of yellow-white that had ignited on the tips of my jeans now spread up, so that I cry out in pain where it touches my skin. It's suddenly real, and as a reflex my hands hurriedly yank the jeans down and step out of them.

I'm in my boxers. My fucking boxers.

Oh, what the hell? No one's going to be seeing me, are they? They're all dead.

Oh, God.

How can this be happening? I can't believe it. All of them, gone. Jasper, my best friend. I don't see his face--had he been at lunch that day? I don't remember. My eyes unconsciously go over the faces, recognizing all the people. People I'd talked to, laughed with. Girls I'd made out with or fucked. People in my classes, whose conversations I'd overheard, and therefore known their names.

I yank my eyes away. No. No.

How come I'm alive? How come the radioactive disturbances didn't kill me too? I don't understand. Is this supposed to be that bolt of lightning that Catholic priest Elizabeth--Mom--kept jabbering with on the phone with was always bringing up? Killing the sinners and bringing the shining white virgins up to Heaven?

Why I have I survived?

I can't stay in here. Not just because of the fact this whole place seems about to go up in flames. Not because of the fact I can barely breath, and the air is frizzling with static.

I can't stay with all these dead people.

I make my way around the table. Tanya, even in death, baring her pierced belly button below the cami/tank top that barely comes down past her boobs. I can see the tattoo on her hip, the one that says Edward. I have a matching one on my bicep. "Tanya" it says. And now the namesake is gone.

Do I care? I don't know.

Now that I've left the table, I move through the cafeteria, quickly now. Not glancing down or side to side. Just staring straight ahead. Keep your head on, Edward. Don't think this shit.

It's fucking weird to have the cafeteria this silent. Don't remember a time when I've been here, and it hasn't been exploding with chatter, laughter, and gossip.

I'm almost at the door, and I'm almost running now. Some guy who had been slumped over the cafeteria table now slips sideways as I pass and drops onto the floor. He has blond hair. Like Jasper. I only see him in my peripheral vision, and then I'm moving on. Shit. Am I crying? No, I can't be crying. Shit shit shit shit no this can't be happening no I never thought this could happen what the fuck who am I how can I have lived my life like this shit shit shit Jasper can't be dead, he's my best friend, everyone's dead, why am I the only one left alive, shit no, God, how can you let this happen, how can this happen, no.

I can't see now. My eyes are blurry. Who the hell cares if I'm crying? Who's going to judge me?

I'd known Jasper for six years. Since I was in seventh grade. We've done everything together, gone on double dates, covered on each other. He knew all about Irina, and didn't let Tanya know. I knew about his addiction to ecstasy and did my best to help him through it. He was always one you could count on to laugh at my lame jokes, but when I needed seriousness, I knew he knew exactly what I was feeling.

How can he be gone? Just in one fucking second?

I'm stumbling. Tripping. I grab hold at the wall next to me. My fingers slide over the cool, smooth tiles. I'm slamming against the wall. I don't feel anything.

And then.

I hear a moan from beside me. A silent, almost-gone groan, but it's there.

I turn.

It's a girl. I think she's in one of my classes. Correction. She _was_ in one of my classes. I'm not going to have any more classes now.

Her long, perhaps waist-length, caramel brown hair has fallen over her face, and she's leaning against a splintered and cracked window. Did it break as she fell against it?

She seems to be unconscious. But she's breathing.

I take her delicate body in my arms, and hook her over my back. She weighs probably a hundred, a hundred and ten points, but I can handle it.

My breath lets out. Somehow, the air seems cleaner, easier to breath, as I make my way out the door to the outside of the school.

_I'm not the last person left alive._

The words confuse me as they go through my head. Did the bomb affect just this school? Will authorities be here any minute? Is everywhere else fine, and this school--or, at worst, this district--just the victim of a random brutality, another 9/11?

But.

We know how much the weapons have progressed since the cold war. The U.S., I know, has developed a thermal nucleic bomb that could blow up the Earth's atmosphere and destroy the entire planet. Do other countries have that? I don't know.

But if they--they being Iran? The terrorists hiding somewhere in Sudan? I don't know--were to bomb us, I know they could wipe out our entire country.

I've seen the media. I've seen the threats. And I know the president--the president I voted for. I know he would retaliate. Extinguish the country responsible.

In a matter of seconds, World War III has been started.

And it may already be over.

Because how can you have a fucking world war without a world?

Fucked up that it may have been, I'd rather have the world that we had than none.


	2. Chapter 2

kazumi; lol, my friend is called kazumi, I thought the name was rare ;D

reviewers; ty. Sorry it'll be a bit slow in updating, I was going to write the whole story before posting it but I guess that's not going to happen, I got impatient.

**EDWARD**

My musing is interrupted by the girl struggling off of my back. She staggers, then falls onto the weed-covered ground. She's brushing her hair out of her eyes and blinking.

"I can't see," she mutters.

"What?"

She blinks in my general direction. "Flash blindness. I learned about this. It should clear up in a few minutes. I can just see white."

I look around, myself. The brick building is still intact, though the structure looks shaky. Through a cloudy and hazy atmosphere--no different than it was in the cafeteria--I can see the sun. It seems more focused, less blurred, a bright beam of yellow-white.

A cough forces itself out of my throat, and several others follow. The air isn't dusty, or smoky. It just seems... weird. A little off.

When the coughing dies down, I see that the girl has stood up, brushing off her clothes. She's wearing a black Linkin Park T-shirt that hugs her upper body with unobtrusive jeans, which I find strange. Linkin Park is one of my favorite bands, but girls don't usually listen to their music.

She's looking at me now.

Her face is strangely angular and thin, with a defined chin and high cheekbones. Somewhat exotic, with unnaturally pale skin and long eyelashes. She's wearing eyeliner, but no makeup otherwise. I wonder why I hadn't noticed her before. She could probably be considered hot, in a not obtrusive sort of way.

Ours eyes meet. Her gaze is mocking.

"Of course. The only person besides me left alive in wherever the hell we are, and he happens to be some jock."

I'm stunned. She's obviously in a bad mood. Not, of course, that either of us would be in a good mood in this situation, but I've never had someone just blow me off like that.

She sighs. "Sorry." She pulls a black scrunchie off of her wrist and pulls her long hair back, twisting it into a messy ponytail, then looks at me again. "Is anyone else in that school alive?" Her gaze is sarcastic, but at the same time, vulnerable. I know the horror of what just happened is hitting her too.

"I don't think so. Everyone was in that gym, or the cafeteria, and everyone there was..." My voice cracks and dies off.

She flinches, and looks down at her hands. They're shaking, and also cut up from the shards of glass from the window she had fallen into.

"You're hands are bleeding." I move to touch them, but she yanks them away, glaring at me.

"I'll live," she snaps. Then, visibly calming down, she says stiffly, "I'm Bella Swan. I'm a senior. Go Armadillos."

I laugh at her dry school spirit. The new school mascot--the Armadillos--wasn't really greeted by a lot of enthusiasm by the senior class. Or anyone, for that matter. But it didn't really matter now. The Armadillo was dead as well, I suppose.

"I'm Edward Cullen. Senior as well. I start on the varsity football team." I say this somewhat arrogantly; after all, making varsity takes a lot of work.

She smirks at me. "Oh. You're _that_ one."

"Uh?" Okay. That sounded idiotic.

"Edward _Cullen_." She stresses out my name mockingly. "Sexiest guy in the school." She marks quotations around the title. "Biggest dick too. In the bad way."

"You're welcome for getting you out of that danger zone," I retort. "Glad to find out you're the only other person left alive, too."

She's about to say something back sharply, then groans, and runs her hand through the bangs that have fallen out of her ponytail. "Ugh. Sorry. Whatever. Life isn't all cake filled with rainbows and smiles at the moment, you know?"

"Sure." I move closer to her and brush her loose bangs out of her eyes. "We'd better go see if there's anything left to New York City, you think?"

She slaps my hand away. "Yes," she agrees. "But don't you try anything, Cullen kid."

We slowly walk, side by side, away from the school. Onto the road that is normally teeming with cars. Now, it is empty and silent.

Bella is different. I think she was in that group of kids, Angela and Ben and rest, that spent their time hanging out with the weird art teacher after school, or chatting between bookshelves in the library.

I suppose she is sort of good looking. In a mellow, not flashy sort of way.

"And," she adds, "please find a pair of pants. I don't care if you take them off some dead guy."

I obey. Now isn't the time to argue.

-

**BELLA**

I feel like shit.

My head is hurting, my eyes are stinging, my legs feel like rubber.

I'm walking like an automaton. It's strange to be strolling in the middle of a busy road, and not have to worry about being hit by a speeding car. It's strange.

I feel a little bad for snapping at Jock. I know his type, but I might as well do my best to get along with him. It's not like I have much choice.

He's staring straight ahead, hands stiff at his sides. I wonder what he's thinking about. A pang goes through my chest, and my eyes sting again.

It's because of this yellow heat. Nothing else.

I didn't see anyone in that cafeteria. _"...and everyone there was..."_ I wasn't unobservant, I had seen how his face twisted, how he couldn't say the word 'dead', how his voice broke off abruptly. Did he have people he loved in that cafeteria? Of course he did. And whoever he was, I could understand that.

I feel a bit numb about my friends. Angela, Ben. Jessica, too, though she hadn't always hung out with us as much as her best friend Lauren. It's so numbing to know I'll never talk to them again. Never recommend a book to her. Never stay after school and hang out with Mr. Brandon after school with the radio turned up to country music. He's gone too.

All my stuff. My violin, my computer, all my well-read paperback books. I feel like another destitute peasant in a Dickens novel. Yet what do I have to compare with?

We've reached the main intersection. The two roads are peppered with shopping plazas, sprawled out in urban mess. A little farther on is the mall.

Jock lets out a soft noise beside me, so quiet I'm not sure if I heard anything.

I put a hand on his shoulder. It feels small on his broad, muscled arm. I almost jerk back in disgust, but force myself to think sympathetic thoughts.

I guess I'm sort of prejudiced against anyone good looking. In my experience, anyone who happens to have sex appeal also knows exactly how good he looks, and therefore has about six girlfriends and won't look twice at a girl who's doesn't meet his criteria. He usually also can't think about anything serious, doesn't have any interests besides working out and looking good--and partying--and is a well-rounded dick.

I sigh. Who cares, anyway.

Jock turns and attempts to meet my eyes. I'm looking down.

"Bella..."

"What?" I mutter.

I glance up, and he's now grinning cockily. Mockingly. What is he thinking?

My jaws clench together with an audible snap, and I yank my hand away. So much for being sympathetic and not prejudiced. Of course he's laughing at me. It's the apocalypse come to life and some jock kid in boxers is laughing at me.

I stalk ahead towards the mall, not bothering to see if he's coming. If anyone else still is alive, they'll be in this place.

Please God, don't let this asshole be the only person left on the world.

Murphy's Law. Never fails.

-

**BELLA**

We're in the mall. The center of civilization for teenagers. Our society sure has progressed a lot, hasn't it?

I let out a short laugh. My voice feels harsh, cutting into thick silence. This world is depressing. Seriously.

-

Edward: So.

Me: Um. So what.

Edward: (shuffle, awkward, etc) I don't think there's anyone still alive here.

Me: Duh.

Edward: (eyeroll)

Me: Your mom ever told you your eyes can get stuck like that?

Edward: (another eyeroll again) You're not amazing at conversation, are you?

Me: (sweet smile) I guess I just can't keep up with your brilliance.

Edward: Ugh. Whatever. (wanders off into some American Eagle store)

-

You know what's weird? Knowing I can just walk into any of these stores and pick out anything I want. And take it.

I've chosen a new pair of jeans. These ones are kind of ratty. I'll keep the band shirt though.

Haha. Me. Bella Swan. Shopping.

See, paradoxes can happen.

I'm grabbing some makeup and such and putting it into a bag. I'll need a brush. Head over to the book store.

I pick up a couple books, slip them into my bag, then open one, my back sliding down the shelf to land on the soft carpeted floor. I'm soon engrossed. It's some stupid plot about a girl who gets the magical power to be able to make any boy lust after her. She makes the guy she has a crush on fall in love with her, supposedly. What will happen? the back summary asks tauntingly.

Hmm. I wonder.

About a third of the way through the book, I notice it's getting chilly. As in, goose bump chilly. I curl up, pulling my knees up to my chest. I should have probably gotten a sweater in one of those clothes stores. I didn't. Damn.

Why is it so freaking cold? I'm in a mall. Even if the heating isn't working, it's March. Did the bomb mess with the weather too?

I look at my hand. My skinny fingers are trembling. And I can't make them stop because it's cold and my lungs are dying and my white skin is shriveling in the cold and and...

I don't know what time it is. I don't know whether it's day or night, whether or not the sun is alive or anything. I pull my legs tighter against my body and my eyes stare wide awake because I can't fall asleep in this twisted Picasso mockery of a world.

I slip into a half-sleep, my lensed eyes staring out at the bookstore, the place I've visited at least thirty times, and seeing it tinged yellow and dead. Icy cold frost-spider-webs creep around the books and bright posters and kill me too.

Someone comes up behind me, and I know it can only be Cullen. His footsteps are dull and quiet compared to the pounding scream all around me of empty silence. He sits next to me and my shivering arms feel the slight body warmth emanating from him.

I sleep.


End file.
